King County Sheriff’s Office Announces Plan to Hire 14 More Deputies

The King County Sheriff’s Office announced Friday (Oct. 12) that 14 more deputies will be hired in the coming months to increase public safety for county residents.

The deputies will be added using current resources from the existing budget.

Sheriff Steve Strachan said that “good budget management by his patrol operations command staff and sergeants which have helped to keep overtime costs down. As a result, funds from current vacancies are being used for the new hires.”

The Sheriff was joined at the announcement by King County Executive Dow Constantine, along with Council Members Joe McDermott and Kathy Lambert.

“The key to our reform agenda is to engage employees in a process of continual improvement,” said King County Executive Dow Constantine. “I appreciate Sheriff Strachan and his staff – from patrol officers to command staff – for piloting a Lean project that cut the use of overtime, helped fill vacancies, and put more police on the street.”

“In the past we have had to maintain a large number of unfilled vacancies in order to save money for unforeseen events and to balance our budget,” said Strachan. “Because of the good work of our people at the front lines responsible for managing day to day budgets, we can fill some of those vacancies and put more cops on the street.”

The hiring plan is to add four in September/October, five in November and five in January, 2013.

No word yet on where the new deputies will be positioned.

“I commend our Sheriff for managing resources to hire these deputies and keeping public safety in our unincorporated neighborhoods as a priority,” said Councilmember Lambert, chair of the Law, Justice, Health and Human Services Committee, and representative of one-third of King County’s unincorporated area residents. “These deputies will be deployed in the field, patrolling the large unincorporated areas and providing an increased presence of law enforcement that deters criminal activity in addition to responding to crime reports.”